Opinion: Read signals from Bhutan

By Amitava Mukherjee In 2022, the eastern Himalayas may again pose a grave threat to India, graver than what has been happening in the Ladakh sector. There are reports that China has been recruiting Tibetan youths for raising local militias in the Chumbi Valley, a strategic trijunction of India, Bhutan and China. This is in […]

By Amitava Mukherjee

In 2022, the eastern Himalayas may again pose a grave threat to India, graver than what has been happening in the Ladakh sector. There are reports that China has been recruiting Tibetan youths for raising local militias in the Chumbi Valley, a strategic trijunction of India, Bhutan and China. This is in addition to the existing Special Tibetan Army Unit, which is now an important part of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA).

Both these units are meant for high altitude warfares in which the Han Chinese soldiers from mainland China are not known to be adept. The youths recruited in the Chumbi Valley have been posted in different parts of the valley’s border.

Critical Space

Chumbi Valley abuts Bhutan and, therefore, Bhutan enjoys unparalleled importance in India’s foreign policy. But there are encouraging signals from Thimpu. Recently, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was conferred Bhutan’s highest civilian award ‘Order of the Druk Gylpo’ on the occasion of Bhutan’s National Day. Such awards are not new to Modi. He has already received such honours from the US, Russia and the United Arab Emirates. But the one from Bhutan has its own strategic significance.

Bhutan now holds a critical space in India’s border management in the eastern Himalayas. That New Delhi should proceed with utmost caution in her relations with Thimpu becomes clear in the light of some satellite images, which show alleged Chinese constructions on the Bhutanese side of the Sino-Bhutan border. Although some parts of the border are disputed and negotiations are going on between Thimpu and Beijing to solve the issue, the satellite images have raised eyebrows in international diplomatic circles. Some of these villages are just 9 to 27 kilometre off the Doklam area of Bhutan, which is very near the trijunction of the three countries.

Strategically speaking, Beijing is expected to give more emphasis to the McMahon Line sector than the Ladakh area in the coming days. It is because of the fact that military manoeuvres are easier here than in the Ladakh area. For China, the central focus should be on the Chumbi Valley. It is an arrow-like protrusion of a part of southern Tibet separating Bhutan from the Indian state of Sikkim. It is the most sensitive point of the trijunction of China, India and Bhutan and enjoys unparalleled strategic importance in the whole of eastern Himalayas. It is very near to the Siliguri corridor, called the Chicken’s neck due to its long and narrow shape, which is India’s only gateway to its northeastern part. Any Chinese push down the Chumbi Valley and then control of the Siliguri corridor will cut off all the northeastern States of India and will also put Kolkata in serious danger.

Eyes on Arunachal

China’s covetous eyes are fixed on Arunachal Pradesh which it considers as southern Tibet. Recently it has renamed, quite ridiculously, 15 places of Arunachal Pradesh. Contrary to many places in the western sector of the Indo-China border where ‘not a blade of grass grows’– thus Jawaharlal Nehru had described the Aksai Chin — Arunachal Pradesh is not only rich in natural resources but also serves as one of the two entry points, the other being the Chumbi Valley-Doklam plateau area, to India’s eastern and northeastern parts. With this end in view, China has staked claims to Bhutan’s Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary.

Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary adjoins the West Kameng and Tawang districts of Arunachal Pradesh. Even in any short duration war, China’s first target in the Arunachal Pradesh sector will be the Tawang monastery, which is only second in importance in Tibetan Buddhism after the monastery of Lhasa. In the 1962 war, China had captured this whole tract including the Tawang monastery up to Bomdilla, a place very near to Tezpur in Assam. Chinese strategic plan will be clear when it is kept in mind that Tawang is situated in the northeast of the Sakteng Wildlife Sanctuary. By claiming Sakteng, China tries to ensure a foothold near Arunachal Pradesh.

Warming up to China

Bhutan has emphatically refused to part with Sakteng. But New Delhi must always keep in mind that slow metamorphism is noticeable in Thimpu’s attitude towards China, the most important of it being Bhutan’s cartographic ceding of its tallest peak, Kula Kangri, to Beijing. Bhutan’s unemployed youth forces are getting more and more business and academic opportunities in China and a galloping increase in Chinese tourism revenue to Bhutan is about to offset Thimpu’s earnings from export of hydropower to India.

China needs parts of Bhutan’s Doklam plateau to widen the Chumbi Valley for making the latter fit for meaningful military manoeuvres. Both Indian as well as international media have been focusing their attention on the goings-on near the trijunction. But more serious developments have been taking place. Recent reports from the Arunachal Pradesh sector suggest movement of Chinese troops in their depth area, ie, around 20 km from the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

So far as the Chumbi Valley and Doklam sector is concerned, satellite images point out to some probable construction sites but we do not know for what purpose they are coming up. There is only some guesswork. However, there are three areas in the Arunachal Pradesh sector — Asaphila, Tuting Axis and Fish Tail 2 — opposite of which military activities of the Chinese PLA have been reported.

China-Bhutan boundary disputes are going on for decades. If Bhutan accedes to China’s territorial claims in its western part, then there is trouble for India in future because this sector has the Doklam plateau. Inclusion of even parts of it in China’s Chumbi Valley will make the latter a vast expanse, ideal for military expeditions. Recently, China and Bhutan have signed a Memorandum of Understanding for a three-step resolution of mutual border problems. But its details have not been disclosed.

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